Open Educational Resources and Anthropology

• Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology Second Edition (Shook, Nelson, Braff, and Aguilera – American Anthropological Association, 2023) (CC BY-NC)

  A comprehensive, peer-reviewed, multi-authored OER for introductory biological anthropology courses. This book chapters explore evolutionary theory, genetics, nonhuman primates origin/evolution, hominin origin/evolution, human adaptation, and other topics. Provides ancillaries, including lecture slides, guided reading notes, and testbank. A complete lab manual, with 2-4 labs/activities per chapter is also available.

  

• Biological Anthropology: A Brief Introduction (Saneda and Field, 2022) (CC-BY-NC-SA)

  This textbook introduces students to evolutionary theory, nonhuman primates, and human evolution.

  

• Introduction to Anthropology (Hasty, Lewis, and Snipes, 2022) – OpenStax (CC BY)

  OpenStax Introduction to Anthropology is a four-field text integrating diverse voices, engaging field activities, and meaningful themes like Indigenous experiences and social inequality to engage students and enrich learning.

  

• Introduction to Anthropology: Holistic and Applied Research on Being Human (Palmiotto, Homsey-Messer, Ford, Poole, Adams, Allard, and Chadwick, 2022) (CC BY-SA)

  Introduction to Anthropology: Holistic and Applied Research on Being Human was created through the cumulative efforts of the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania… This textbook will take students through a range of themes and subject matter, covering the field of anthropology from its history to topics of kinship, human rights, and so much more.

  

• Introduction to Physical Anthropology (Schoenberg, 2021) (CC BY-NC)

  Developed by a California Community College faculty member, this is an introductory biological anthropology OER textbook. The text (except quotations) is licensed under CC-BY-NC, but the author notes “be careful with the graphics.”

  

• The History of Our Tribe: Hominini (Welker, 2017) (CC-BY-NC-SA)

  This book includes a section on nonhuman primate origins, but the main focus of the book is on hominin species beginning in the Miocene. This resource from Open SUNY “is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest.”

  

• Becoming Human: How Evolution Made Us (Downey, 2013) (CC-BY-NC 3.0)

  This ebook is distributed free through the support of Smashwords, Open Universities Australia and Enculture Press. Focused on the origins of our species (Homo sapiens), this book is an introduction to evolutionary theory and to human origins.

  

• Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology – Lab Manual (Shook, Nelson, Braff, and Aguilera – American Anthropological Association, 2021) (CC BY-NC 4.0)

  Materials-based and virtual labs, as well as in-class activities, to accompany each Explorations chapter. Multi-authored labs/activities include:

  • Learning objectives
  • List of required supplies
  • Instructions for faculty
  • Estimated duration
  • Student worksheets
  • Reference to the corresponding Explorations chapter and other readings
  • Consistent format and style

  

• General Biology Labs (Burran and DesRochers, 2015) – LibreTexts (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  There are various resources listed here that may provide lab materials for Biological Anthropology lab courses, or background readings/resources for such courses.

• Biological Anthropology – Laboratory Activities (Taub, 2010) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA)

  A collection of labs covering: bone identification; Hardy-Weinberg; primates; bone injuries; hominin cranium comparison. Recommended to be used with Biological Anthropology coursework. From the author: The instructor is expected to present the base material that students will need to complete each activity. This allows the instructor to mold the activities to their own approach. Students will need an assigned text to assist with these activities…The contents of this manuscript are available by means of Creative Commons. They may be used free of charge as long as this author and all other copyright holders are given credit for their work. Should you have any activities you wish to add to this manual, and make available under creative commons to other instructors, please notify this author.

  

• Introduction to Anthropology (Hasty, Lewis, and Snipes, 2022) – OpenStax (CC BY)

  OpenStax Introduction to Anthropology is a four-field text integrating diverse voices, engaging field activities, and meaningful themes like Indigenous experiences and social inequality to engage students and enrich learning.

  

• Introduction to Anthropology: Holistic and Applied Research on Being Human (Palmiotto, Homsey-Messer, Ford, Poole, Adams, Allard, and Chadwick, 2022) (CC BY-SA)

  Introduction to Anthropology: Holistic and Applied Research on Being Human was created through the cumulative efforts of the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania… This textbook will take students through a range of themes and subject matter, covering the field of anthropology from its history to topics of kinship, human rights, and so much more.

  

• Cultural Anthropology (Saneda and Field, 2020) – LibreTexts (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

  An introductory textbook for cultural anthropology organized by three major topics: Anthropology & Culture; Social Institutions; Globalization, Modernization, & Development

  

• Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition (Brown, Tubelle de Gonzalez, and McIlwraith – American Anthropological Association, 2020) (CC-BY-NC 4.0)

  A comprehensive, multi-authored, peer-reviewed OER textbook for introduction to cultural anthropology courses. Includes chapters on all topics typically covered in an introductory course and chapters that explore specialized topics. Includes ancillaries, including lecture slides, instructor manual, and test bank.

  

• The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology (Wesch – New Prairie Press, 2018) (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  This textbook accompanies the free and open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology multimedia course available at: ANTH101.com. Wesch introduces core anthropological concepts and illustrates them by drawing on his own fieldwork experiences and contemporary U.S. examples

  

There are no specified OER for Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. However, some instructors may find the following OER useful for parts of this course.

• Languages and Worldview (Allard-Kropp, 2024) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  A brief introductory text for linguistic anthropology with chapters on: language and culture; conveying meaning; ethnolinguistics; worldview and intercultural communication.

  

• Essentials of Linguistics, 2nd Edition (Anderson et al., 2022) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  This is an introductory textbook for linguistics (not linguistic anthropology) but chapters could be used to provide foundational knowledge about languages.

  

• Traces: An Open Invitation to Archaeology (Donahue, Ray, Scarborough, and Zovar – Whatcom Community College, FORTHCOMING) (CC BY)

  This OER is a multi-authored, peer reviewed textbook for undergraduate lower-level introductory archaeology courses. It is nearing completion and currently being beta-tested.

• Archaeology (Ruth, 2023) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This OER explores archeology as the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture specifically artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes, with a focus on the Americas.

  

• Digging into Archaeology: A Brief OER Introduction to Archaeology with Activities (Paskey and Cisneros, 2020) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC)

  Multi-authored, peer-reviewed, accessible chapters. 16 chapters focus on essential topics in introductory archaeology courses (emphasis on theory and methods). Each chapter includes: learning objectives, terms list, review questions, one or more activities (activities include: short in-person activities, hands-on activities, short-term and full-term projects, indoor and outdoor activities, individual and group work). Flexible modality for in-person and online courses

  

• Introduction to Archaeology: A Workbook (Lemke, 2020) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Introduction to Archaeology: A Workbook, is designed to assist students in the Intro to Archaeology course by giving them questions and assignments to reinforce what is learned in the classroom lectures.

  

• Writing as Material Practice – Substance, Surface and Medium (Piquette et al., 2013) – LibreTexts (CC BY-SA)

  Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging from the Americas to the Near East, chapters in this volume bring various perspectives to questions of writing materialities.

  

• Beliefs: An Open Invitation to the Anthropology of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion (Zunner-Keating and Avetyan, 2020) – LibreTexts (CC BY 4.0)

  Beliefs: An Open Invitation to the Anthropology of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion (Zunner-Keating and Avetyan, 2020) – Pressbooks (CC BY 4.0)

  Includes Soundcloud recordings of each chapter, links to primary sources and articles, and eleven chapters covering topics typically included in an introductory course on anthropology of magic, witchcraft, and religion, including: theoretical approaches, witchcraft, ritual, myth, comparative religion, syncretism, altered states of consciousness, and religious specialists.